There's No Silver Bullet Strategy For Monetizing Apps, But There Are Lots Of Options To Compare

from the many-ways-to-make-a-buck dept

Post sponsored by

As part of our sponsorship program with the Application Developers Alliance, we're highlighting some of the content on DevsBuild.It, their new resource website, that we think will be most interesting to Techdirt readers.

In the sidebar widget featuring DevsBuild.It content, many of the most-read links have been those dealing with business models for apps, such as the developer who explained how their first game made $28,623 (the most popular post over the past month). For those of you following these kinds of stories, we're highlighting a few new additions to DevsBuild.It that aim to help developers with the task of monetizing an app.

First, there's a comparison tool that helps sort through all the different ad networks and other monetization platforms, filtering them by various criteria to help developers put together a smart business model:

To accompany the tool, there's also a free white paper on app monetization [pdf link] which compares different app stores (including the less-mainstream ones) and breaks the core monetization models down into
categories.

Finally, an early announcement: the Application Developers Alliance is hosting a series of events on app monetization, in San Francisco on August 2nd, New York on September 26th and LA on October 18th. More details are on the way.

Reader Comments

Shotgunning

The other point to be made is that none of these monetization strategies are mutually exclusive. Developers can (and should) take a multipath approach to monetization.

Have both a "free" ad-based version as well as a for-pay, ad-free version. Put them in multiple app stores simultaneously, and sell them directly to your customers from your own web page at the same time.

Interesting

My App

Wanted to say that I was thinking of developing an app for the Kenyan market specifically targeting people in the auto industry. The issue is that i am not an app developer so that would be one of the constraints i will have to deal with.

The other issue was to monetise it. I had thought of using admob. Will bookmark this page and probably when the time is right i can refer to the links you have provided.